Divining Rod said:

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would love to see Tech claw back and maje it. a young team with a great veteran leader. 3-1 would get them to 7-11 in B12 and 18-13 overall. maybe 2 wins needed in tourney.

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Would love Tech to destroy the tourney hopes of West Virginia and Ok St. …… but gtfo with wanting them in the tourney.

Yea screw Tech and Mark Adams. Get out of here with that nonsense.

Moved up 3 spots to 30 in Kenpom. We may actually catch Arkansas or Auburn at some point if we win out.

.4% chance we're a 1seed. So you're telling me there's a chance.

AgLA06 said:

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Go 2-2 by beating the Mississippi schools and selection Sunday is just about what seed we get.

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Win one more game and it's just about seeding.

Bubble Watch Updated - Will wait until the NET rankings update to actually post to GBH. I have us as the 3rd 8 seed.

8 seeds

49. Rutgers (29, 17-10, 9-7) Rutgers got the needed road win at Wisconsin on Saturday to stop the 3-game skid. Their best OOC win is against a Wake Forest team that likely won't make the tournament, but they have done enough in conference including winning @Purdue that winning just 1 more will be enough to lock them up. (2/23 Michigan)

50. Michigan State (35, 16-10, 8-7) Lost at Michigan on Saturday for their 10th loss. No bad losses and 5 quad 1 wins have them still in great shape. If they can just win 1 more they will be fine. (2/21 Indiana)

51. Texas A&M (31, 20-7, 12-2) The incredible run continues, adding a sweep of Mizzou to the sweeps of Auburn, LSU and Florida. Yet another big time quad 1 win, that's now 5 on the year. It is certainly possible that A&M has done enough, getting to 20 wins and 12 wins in conference. Possible now that A&M would be in the field even if they don't add to the win column for the remainder of the year. That being said, given what happened last year I don't think anyone will feel comfortable until we get 1 more. The 2 quad 4 losses still hurt and will continue to do so all the way until selection Sunday, however they hurt more from a seeding standpoint than a selection at this point. There has been a lot of talk about just how high can this resume go? It is hard to know, given everyone else will still be racking up wins too but a rough guideline would be: 4-0 (5 seed), 3-1 (7 seed), 2-2 (8 seed), 1-3 (10 seed), 0-4 last 4 in/NIT 1 seed. And then of course the conference tournament may play into it a bit also, although I wouldn't count on that playing a major factor. Winning the SECT may raise the seed by 1 from what I have listed, while taking a bad loss in the 1st game may drop the NCAA seed by 1 seed line. The best part of this latest win? Texas A&M still controls its own destiny to win the SEC going into the last 4 games, that's remarkable considering this conference has the #1 overall seed (Alabama) that plays in it. It sure would be something to emphatically punch our ticket by PACKING REED ARENA and knocking off Tennessee on Tuesday. (2/21 Tennessee)

52. NC State (38, 20-7, 10-6) Took what might be their worst loss of the season on Tuesday night at Syracuse. That's the end of a tough 3 game road stretch for them and now they return home for 3 quad 2 opportunities. NC State is the definition of a typical 8/9 seed just kinda treading water, no real bad losses, no wins that are going to jump out at you, winning the games they are supposed to, best win OOC is over Dayton. A 2-2 finish and they are fine, anything worse than that potentially gets a bit dicey. (2/19 North Carolina)

*67. Mississippi State (44, 18-9, 6-8) Survived a scare at Ole Miss to hang on to IN status and get to 6-8 in the SEC. The resume looks decent on paper with 3 quad 1 wins (Marquette, @Arkansas, TCU) and no losses to Q3/Q4 but the 6-8 record in the SEC at least raises a few eyebrows. Probably need to win 3 of 4 down the stretch. (2/21 @Mizzou)

*68. USC (63, 19-8, 11-5) Won both the must win games against bad teams on their home floor. They do have 2 quad 3 losses but as of now they have done just enough to sneak in. May need to win 3 of the last 4 to stay in this position however. (2/23 @Colorado)

*Play-in game participants

------------------THE BUBBLE BURSTS HERE------------------

69. New Mexico (55, 19-7, 7-7) New Mexico looks like they have finally righted the ship winning by 28 at San Jose State. If so it will have come just in time with a trip to Boise State coming and then San Jose State coming to town after that. Before the SJSU win UNM recorded 4 straight losses, including to Air Force, and Wyoming. 4 Quad 3/quad 4 losses on the season. If they get in it will be 2 gem wins on the road @St. Mary's and @San Diego State. They probably need to add a 3rd gem to their resume by winning one of these next 2, and then win the final 2 games of the season to get an at large. (2/22 @Boise State)

70. Wisconsin (77, 15-11, 7-9) 3rd straight 1-1 week, the Badgers are doing just enough to stay in the 1st 4 out. They do have 5 quad 1 wins including over USC and Marquette OOC. The NET ranking and analytics are a big issue for them though as is the sheer number of losses if they don't start having some 2-0 weeks right now. (2/22 Iowa)

71. Oregon (49, 15-12, 9-7) Washington drives a big nail into the duck coffin. I am not as high as others to begin with on this Oregon resume, OOC losses to UC Irvine, and Utah Valley. Just 3-7 vs. quad 1 and the win on their home court vs. Arizona is really the only especially noteworthy win. The biggest issue for Oregon is that there really isn't an opportunity to move up the rest of the way. The final 4 games come against 11-15 Washington State, 9-16 Oregon State, 3-22 Cal and 11-14 Stanford. Best case scenario is just treading water and hope the rest of the bubble comes back to them a bit. (2/19 @Washington State)

72. Penn State (61, 16-11, 7-9) Penn State was on life support after the 4-game losing streak, but the upset of Illinois to give them the season streak has given them new life. There still isn't too much to this resume other than the wins over Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa, they did nothing OOC, so they really need to get to .500 in conference to have a chance. That means winning 3 of their last 4. (2/23 @Ohio State)

Faustus said:

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I appreciate the write ups.

It's been a fun season.

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t's been a fun season past couple months

NET up to 29

There are lots of ways to count to the 68. I prefer this method, which makes a lot more sense on selection Sunday, the auto bids are even more safely in/secure than say Texas for example. It also provides a good indication of how far away you are from #69.

Most that do the counting end up with a weird gap between the last team in ~#46 and then #69. And then there is also no way to indicate where a team like Charleston is if they were just out of the field and mixed in with the other auto bids.

This is the same way I've done it now for 18 years and it seems to work ok

Strongly disagree. We never would have had the UMBC game. And I enjoy the play in 16 seed games way more than I would enjoy watching an Oregon vs Ohio State game or something like that this year

Muy said:

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Auto bids for some seriously horrible conferences should be removed.

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The reason we went to 64 in the first place was to protect the small conferences.

They also effectively did remove some of the auto bids when they created the play in games forcing 2 to go home before the 1st round started

Muy said:

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Auto bids for some seriously horrible conferences should be removed.

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Could not disagree with this more. Come conference tournament time every single team in the country, no matter how bad, can dream of making the tournament/winning a title and I think that makes college hoops great. You don't get St. Peter's stories if you exclude those leagues. We also don't need more middling major conference teams watering down the field.

I don't think any of the auto-bid conferences should even have to go to Dayton, but I know those conferences don't mind it because they get money for winning those games.

Topher17 said:

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Muy said:

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Auto bids for some seriously horrible conferences should be removed.

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Could not disagree with this more. Come conference tournament time every single team in the country, no matter how bad, can dream of making the tournament/winning a title and I think that makes college hoops great. You don't get St. Peter's stories if you exclude those leagues. We also don't need more middling major conference teams watering down the field.

I don't think any of the auto-bid conferences should even have to go to Dayton, but I know those conferences don't mind it because they get money for winning those games.

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This

Absolutely love the Cinderella stories tgst come from a ge teams tgst win these conferences

They are, for me, what makes the tournament great

The first two rounds after the play-in games have always been, for me, the most fun four days of any sporting event

Last year was the only year I havent watched because of the horrible snub of our Aggies

I realize it would help our NET ranking and tournament resume, but I wouldn't trade the Wofford loss for any of the wins that have helped us tear through the conference so far.

Great write up(s) and insights as always! Thanks.

However, is it time to find a spot on the outer edges of the bubble for Vanderbilt?

I mean - compared to Texas Tech (who has generated alot of discussion on this thread):

Texas Tech is 4-9 Quad 1 and 0-3 Quad 2 - so 4-12 against the Quad 1/Quad 2 total (though I understand no bad losses with NO Quad 3 or Quad 4 losses).

Vanderbilt is 4-7 Quad 1 and 3-3 Quad 2 - so 7-11 (much better than Tech) against the combined Quad 1/Quad 2 though they do have 1 Quad 3 and 1 Quad 4 loss.

However, unlike Tech, who has no good OOC wins, Vandy has OOC wins against Pitt (who you have in the field right now) and of course their BIG wins against Wofford and Alabama A&M (which, without expending too much effort on research, must be some mad scientists' GMO hydrid of the Crimson Tide and our Aggies - undoubtedly a CBB powerhouse ;-).

In conference, they have wins against Arkansas, Auburn, @ Florida and @Georgia plus the big win against Tennessee. And they pass the "vision test" looking good on the road in losses against Missouri and our Aggies.

Finally, hasn't the committee given some consideration in cases when a key player was out (I'm talking about Liam Robbins) to give less weight to losses during that period?

I think it might take a run similar to our Aggies at the end of last year to do it, but I could easily see Vanderbilt finishing with 10-12 conference wins - and, if it ends up being 11-12 wins by season's end, would include at least one win against Kentucky (would be a huge road win for Vandy) and/or Mississippi State.

We already believe that any noise that Vandy might make in the SEC Tournament will probably not be considered by the committee based on how they treated the Ags last year - but I think you could make a compelling argument to include them in the field as an at large selection should they win out prior to the SECT - hence my contention that they should make your next list - obviously currently behind the cut line.

You have my permission to cut and past any of my post here to use in your justification for including them among your bubble teams at the time of your next update.